UNITED NATIONS, Sep 25 2013 (IPS) - While the U.S. and Iranian heads of state have yet to meet, the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly may mark a new era between the two countries. After more than 30 years of frozen US-Iran relations, President Barack Obama announced Tuesday during his address to the world body that Secretary of State John Kerry would be directly involved in talks over Iran’s nuclear program. “As Javad [Zarif] has said, now is the time to stop behaving like carpet merchants." -- William Luers of the Iran Project Obama’s announcement comes on the heels of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s decision earlier this month to move Iran’s nuclear negotiating file from the Supreme National Council to its Foreign Ministry headed by Kerry’s counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif. Kerry and Zarif are scheduled to meet on Thursday, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton announced on Monday, adding that Zarif and the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany) would meet in Geneva in October. The Kerry-Zarif meeting would be the highest-level formal encounter of the two countries since the 1979 U.N. General Assembly when then Secretary of State Cyrus Vance met with Provisional Foreign Minister Ibrahim Yazdi seven months after the Islamic Revolution, according to Columbia University Professor Gary Sick. ipsnews.net/2013/09/u-s-iran-trade-cautious-overtures-at-u-n/
Posted on: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 06:13:18 +0000
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